'Modern Virtue Ethics Essay\r'

'To what extent do new-fashi atomic number 53d virtue ethics address the weaknesses of Aristotle’s teaching on virtues? (35) merit morals attend tos at a soul’s proficient traits, known as ‘virtues’ and ban traits, known as ‘vices’; a psyche is considered to be a goodly virtuallybody if they be virtuous and a morally hurtful soulfulness if they have veritable lots of vices. Deontological and teleological ethicists argue that good or bad behaviour is further to a greater extent important than a psyche’s good or bad characteristics whereas Virtue Theory argues it is only by becoming a better someone that we will engage in the ‘ proper’ behaviour; Virtue Theory looks at the agent in itself and instead than the put to death. The cay concepts of Virtue moral philosophy were first writened by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle and in more recent times have been capable and added to by Alasdair MacInty re. Aristotle’s surmise is learn up of firearmy call features, including honorable Virtues, The Doctrine of the Mean, Eud excogitationonia, and Friendship and the Community.\r\nAccording to Aristotle, everything has a purpose, for example, pens, their purpose is to write, if the pen fulfils its purpose and writes fountainhead, it is a good pen. In the equivalent way, if we stand for Eudaimonia to the pen, Eudaimonia is the supreme finis of gentle life, if a person reaches Eudaimonia, they argon a considered a good person as the purpose was to be happy, and so they have reached their purpose, just as the pen reaches its own. He as well as argued that every action comes down to this aim, every human organism desires to be as happy as possible.\r\nAn example of this is to ask a reconstruct or a Lawyer wherefore they chose such transactions, the majority would answer that they chose this profession because it pays well and they believed that being paid well would le ad to an easier and happy life, or Eudaimonia. Aristotle’s theory to a fault says that relationships and friendships play a very important role in how we behave as citizenry and how our actions argon determined; we should all aim to independently achieve Eudaimonia, which would on that pointfore achieve the great good for society as a whole as everyone would be happier; Aristotle sees our common friendships and relationships as a vital bug out of our moral code and flourishing as a virtuous being.\r\nAs antecedently mentioned, a good life involves belowdeveloped a good character and these be known as moral virtues which atomic number 18 cultivated by habit; one must practice these good virtues in order to presume them. Some of the key virtues Aristotle spoke of include modesty, generosity, patience, truthfulness and friendliness. Aristotle also spoke of Intellectual Virtues and Cardinal Virtues. Aristotle believed that we should aim to be virtuous people and ward off vices.\r\nAristotle’s theory is centered more or less the concept of The Doctrine of the Mean; this states that on that point are two different vices that adopt every virtue- the offense of Deficiency and the Vice of Excess. The Vice of Deficiency refers to a apparent lack of virtues, whereas the Vice of Excess refers to too much of the virtue being present. For example, modesty, if thither is a distinct lack of this virtue, it whitethorn allow for in shamelessness and if thither is too much of this virtue, it may result in shyness. Aristotle argued that the ‘Golden (or Virtuous) Mean’ is the eye of these to extremes and that is what people should aim to have.\r\nAristotle’s theory is very logical and encourages people to adopt good characteristics which in an thinkerl terra firma would result in every soul being as happy as possible; in time there are many criticisms of this theory. For example, it is somewhat un terminate of what is cons idered a virtue and what is considered a vice and it is also unclear of who is responsible for deciding these; as well as this, it could be argued that it is non possible to measure these virtues. It could also be argued that if every individual had exactly the same characteristics, everyone would be the same and the world be sound mundane and monotonous. Virtue morals also does not provide clear guidelines or rules of how to act in air divisionicularized circumstances and is vague and subjective.\r\nAlasdair Macintyre is a stinting philosopher, whose writing dates to the 20th Century CE. He made an attempt to alter Aristotle’s theory in order to make it more relative and contexualise the ideas. Macintyre felt that moral philosophy had become lax and felt that they had become far hypothetical. He felt that people focused more on how an honest theory would hold up under uncommon and unrealistic circumstances rather than situations where morality counts. He believed that we should understand the scope of ethics forward attempting to fix recent moral dilemmas.\r\nMacintyre’s belief in context as the central part to ethical decision making shows us that he is relative in his ideology. He believed that virtues would alteration over time naturally, for example, courageousness for us is a person that confronts a gang of youths, throwing rocks at windows, or a police tackling a burglar, however 2000 age ago, bravery was considered as a man dying in battle, for his country. This is an attempt at addressing a weakness of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, as it would encourage the person to look at the time and place before deciding whether the character traits are good or not. It has to be said that what may be considered good in the congo may not necessarily be considered good in Brixton, London.\r\nFinally Macintyre addresses the electric outlet of External and Internal goods. Internal Goods are what he calls, the qualities of a person’s character. The External Goods are the things that a person relies on, for example,food or a decent biography arrangement. He states that although these are valuable to the human nature, they can be considered good or bad. However the Internal Goods are the near important. This gives more relativism than Aristotelian Virtue Ethics which can be considered an improvement.\r\nIn coating I tang that Alasdair Macintyre has made a good attempt to improve and change Aristotle’s version of Virtue Ethics, however we can still see some weaknesses. For example, it is even more relative than Aristotle’s version and this can lead to equivocalness when facing a moral dilemma. This has not been addressed, in the modern version by Macintyre. It also does not eliminate the idea of universal virtues to achieve Eudaimonia. This is problematic. So, I shade that his attempt must be congratulated scarcely I do not feel that it has been entirely successful as there are still elements wh ich could be ameliorate further.\r\n'